Trigger warnings *injuries, painful recovery, trauma
The sound drags me out of sleep like a hook through flesh.
Alarms, shrill and relentless.
Over them—wet, strangled gasps.
And then—her.
A muffled cry, sharp and ragged, splits through the noise. It's the sound of someone drowning in their own body.
Before I can move, Lysander's there, a violent blur in my peripheral. "Move."
The shove knocks the breath out of me, sends me stumbling into the wall. By the time I catch myself, he's already at her cot, Riven right behind him, hands gloved, jaw locked.
Ardere's back arches off the bed, every tendon standing out like wire beneath her skin. Her hands claw uselessly at the air, trying to tear away tubes and wires, but Lysander pins them down. She thrashes against his grip, choked sobs escaping between gasps that sound like they're tearing her throat raw.
Her eyes—half-lidded, glassy—dart around the room without focus, wild and hunted. Her breath hitches, a broken animal noise caught in her chest, and then she convulses again, a high, guttural sound ripping out of her.
"She's tearing the sutures!" Riven snaps, already moving to brace her legs.
"Don't let her—" Lysander's voice cracks, but his grip doesn't falter. "Ardere, stop—listen to me, you're safe, you're safe—"
She doesn't hear him. Or if she does, it's buried under the avalanche of whatever hell she's waking into. Her body keeps jerking, muscles locking, then spasming violently.
Riven wrenches the oxygen mask into place, his other hand pressing down on her shoulder to keep her from thrashing too hard. "Her heart rate's spiking—we need to—"
"I know," Lysander growls, the words shaking with something that isn't quite rage.
The monitor screams in time with her pulse. Sweat slicks her face, mingling with tears she can't stop. Every time she tries to suck in air, it comes out as a ragged, panicked wheeze, her chest seizing with the effort.
It's more than panic. It's pain.
Pain so deep it strips her down to nothing but instinct—to fight, to get away from the burning, from the suffocating.
And I can't move.
My feet are rooted, my hands hanging uselessly at my sides. Every sound she makes feels like it's peeling me apart from the inside.
"Hold her steady," Riven says, voice clipped. He's already leaning over her, fingers brushing the side of her temple.
Ardere flinches hard at the touch, like it burns. Her breath comes in ragged bursts, chest heaving, the mask fogging with each wheeze.
"Reaction to touch—still there," Riven mutters, more to himself than anyone else. He reaches for her face again, tugging down the mask just enough to speak directly to her. "Ardere. Say something."
Her lips move, but the sound that comes out is a broken, hoarse rasp, more pain than words.
"Speech compromised," Riven says quietly, already shifting to wave two fingers in front of her face. "Tracking?"
Her eyes follow sluggishly for a second, then dart away, unfocused.
"Partial sight," he confirms, jaw tight. "Hearing—"
"Ardere," he says louder, close to her ear now. "If you can hear me, blink twice."
There's a flicker of movement. One blink. Then nothing.
"Diminished," Riven mutters.
Every word feels like it's being carved into me. Sight—partial. Hearing—diminished. Speech—broken. Touch—pain.
I want him to stop talking. I want the list to end. But he's still going, like he's dismantling her piece by piece, cataloging what's left.
Riven's hand pulls back, but Lysander doesn't let go. His grip on her shoulders is iron, his voice a low, urgent murmur meant to cut through her panic.
Then Ardere's gaze shifts.
It snags on me.
For a heartbeat, she goes still. Her ragged breaths stall, her trembling pauses, as though her mind is trying to catch up to what her eyes are telling her.
I want to say something. Anything. I want to tell her it's over, that I'm not going to hurt her again, that I'd burn the whole damn world before I let anyone else touch her—
Her face twists. Not in fear. Not even in confusion.
In pure, unfiltered hate.
It's the kind of look that doesn't need words to explain itself. It says I remember. It says I know what you did. It says I wish you were the one dying in this bed instead of me.
She starts thrashing again, harder than before, her muffled, guttural sounds pitching toward screams. The monitors spike. Lysander snaps something at Riven, and they move fast—mask back in place, sedative syringe uncapped.
I can't move. I can't breathe. I can't do anything but watch her fight like she's being attacked all over again, her eyes locked on me until they finally flutter shut under the drug's pull.
The room falls quiet except for the beeping.
"That's good," Riven says, breathless but calm, like we're discussing the weather.
My head snaps toward him. "Good?"
He nods, wiping a smear of blood from his wrist. "If she's got enough fire in her to try to rip your head off, her brain's not completely gone. Damage might not be permanent."
Lysander adjusts the blankets over her, checks the monitors one last time, and then—without looking at me—walks out.
When he comes back, there's a plate in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. He sets them down on the cot beside me like it's the most ordinary thing in the world.
"Eat," he says.
I stare at it. I don't move. "Why?"
His gaze flicks to mine, and it's like standing too close to a wildfire. "Because she woke up. Because she's alive."
The words hang there, almost like they're meant to be a kindness. But his voice… there's nothing kind about it.
I pick up the bottle. My hands shake more than I want them to. The water burns going down, my throat raw from days without it. I force myself to take a bite of bread. It sits like a stone in my stomach.
Lysander doesn't leave. He leans in the doorway, arms folded, watching me like he's keeping score.
"Don't mistake this for forgiveness," he says after a long moment. "You're breathing right now for one reason—because Ardere is. But if she asks me to kill you…" He tilts his head slightly, as if picturing it. "I will. And it won't be quick."
The bread turns to ash in my mouth.
He pushes off the doorway, turning to go back to her side. "So eat, Dorian. Might be your last meal."
The door shuts behind him, leaving me with the food, the silence… and the knowledge that the only thing between me and death is the mercy of the girl who probably dreams of killing me.
*****
It's hours later when I hear her stir. The shift in her breathing, the groggy exhale—it's like my whole body tunes to it. I can almost see it: her eyes flickering open, sluggish from whatever cocktail they've pumped into her. Even without the bond tugging at me like a frayed wire, I'd know exactly where she is. Every breath, every shift of fabric against the sheets, the occasional pained hitch in her chest—my senses zero in on her without permission.
But it's Lysander's voice that cuts through first. He's practically shouting, his tone clipped and deliberate, like he's forcing her to understand whether she wants to or not.
"You've got a fractured wrist, three cracked ribs, bruising over at least half your torso, and your vocal cords are a mess," he says. "That's from being strangled." His voice dips on that last part, but not enough to hide it from me. "You won't be speaking much for a while. Don't even try, or you'll make it worse."
There's no answer. No raspy sound, no scribble of a pen—because she can't.
A pause. Then the metallic scrape of Lysander's chair against the floor. "You're lucky you're even conscious right now. I don't know what the hell possessed you to walk into his cell after Riven told you not to—"
Something soft shifts on the bed. Sheets whispering, a pillow being adjusted. I can picture it too clearly—her trying to get comfortable with that kind of pain crawling under her skin.
"Don't move like that," Lysander barks. "You'll tear the stitches."
Another pause. Then his tone sharpens. "And don't give me that look. You want to be mad at someone, fine—but you walked in there knowing exactly what could happen."
Her breathing changes. Shallow. Controlled. It's the kind of sound you make when you're trying not to cry, but the grief is just sitting there, pressing on your chest.
I sit back in my chair and force my fists to unclench. The coppery ghost of her blood is still under my nails, no matter how hard I scrubbed. I can still feel the way her throat moved under my grip, the way her pulse hammered against my hand right before it slowed.
And if they hadn't stopped me…
I grind my teeth and look at the door separating us. Every part of me knows I should stay exactly where I am. But the bond doesn't care about reason, and neither does the part of me that hasn't stopped replaying the moment her eyes met mine in that cell.
Lysander's voice carried even through the wall — low, steady, but loud enough for her to catch over the beeping monitors and the faint hum of the infirmary's lights.
"…your wrist will be immobilized for at least six weeks. No writing. No strain.
"You won't be able to talk without pain for some time. No forcing it. If you push yourself, you could cause permanent damage to your vocal cords."
I could picture her nodding, sluggish from sedation, eyelids heavy, but still following him. Every word hit like a blade between my ribs — my hands had done that. My hands, my strength, my training.
The bond was already pulling at me, taut as a wire, yanking me toward her door. I'd been told not to go in. Ordered. Threatened. But it didn't matter. Sitting in the other room while Lysander's voice kept outlining the damage I'd caused was worse than any punishment waiting for me.
Lysander's voice was still carrying across the infirmary when I walked in, the sharp syllables cutting through the chemical sting of antiseptic.
"…and you're not even going to think about trying to get up for at least two weeks. That lung has to heal, and—"
He stopped when he noticed me, but the words didn't have to stop for me to know what he'd been saying. Ardere was propped up halfway in the bed, pale, eyes a little glazed from the sedatives. Bandages crawled up her neck where my hands had been, thick and white and hiding the angry purple beneath. Her wrist was splinted, her lips cracked from the oxygen mask they must've had her in earlier.
Her eyes found mine.
Lysander turned, squaring himself between us, jaw clenched tight.
"I told you—"
"I'm not here to hurt her." My voice felt like gravel in my throat, and it was shaking—God, it was shaking. "Just… I just need to talk to her. Just to her. Then I'll go."
"No," Lysander said, firm enough that the air seemed to still.
The bond twisted in my chest like barbed wire, pulling me toward her anyway. Every step forward was a defiance of orders and self-preservation.
Ardere didn't look away.
"I'm not asking for forgiveness," I said, forcing the words out before Lysander could shove me back through the door. "I'm not—hell, I'm not stupid enough to think I deserve that. I just—" My breath caught. "Please. Just let me say this, and then you never have to see me again."
Lysander's glare could've bored a hole through my skull. But he didn't move. He was waiting for her.
Her throat flexed once like she was trying to speak, but no sound came out. She blinked slow, then let her gaze dip, once. A nod.
I stepped past Lysander, my boots too loud on the tile, until I was at her bedside.
Up close, the damage was worse. Her skin was mottled with the handprints I'd left there, shadows blooming from the base of her jaw up to her ears. The bruising along her temple, the way her lips trembled—not from fear, but the effort it took just to stay awake—I'd done all of it. My breath stuttered.
"I wasn't… me," I started, and even I hated how it sounded. "That doesn't make it better. Doesn't make it—" I swallowed hard. "You didn't deserve it. You never did."
Her lashes fluttered, and for a second I thought she might try to answer. Instead, her eyes glossed over, a tear slipping down and catching on the edge of the bandage at her jaw. Then another.
My chest cracked open. "Don't—please don't cry," I said, voice breaking, because the soundless sob in her throat was worse than if she'd screamed. "I just needed you to know I'm sorry. I don't expect anything else from you. Not now, not ever."
That's when Lysander grabbed me.
His hand fisted in the front of my shirt, hauling me up so fast my head snapped back. "She doesn't need this," he snarled, his breath hot and furious against my face. "She doesn't need you."
I twisted, trying to plant my feet, but he drove me backward into the wall so hard the frame rattled. My shoulder cracked against plaster.
"She listened," I managed, voice rough, "that's all I wanted—"
"You think that matters?" Lysander's grip tightened. Then he slammed me into the wall again, my head ringing. "You think you get to want anything after what you did?"
The next shove wasn't toward the wall—it was toward the door. I stumbled, caught myself on the frame, but he was already on me. One hard kick to the back of my leg buckled me down, and the next thing I knew I was being half-dragged, half-thrown into the hallway.
My knees hit the floor.
Lysander's voice was ice over fire. "If you set foot in here again, I will make sure you leave on a stretcher."
The door slammed, sealing me out. Leaving me with nothing but the echo of her tears and the sound of my own breathing—shallow, ragged, and breaking.
—
That night, I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, replaying every damn second. Her face. Her voice. The way she wouldn't look at me. My head's pounding where it hit the wall, but it's nothing compared to the knot in my chest.
I jerk awake so hard my ribs ache.
The room is black except for the pale rectangle of moonlight slanting through the curtains. My chest heaves, sweat crawling down my temples, the dream still scalding my nerves. I drag in a breath. Another.
That's when I see her.
At first I think it's another nightmare trick—the way she's slumped against the side of my bed, knees drawn in awkwardly, head hanging so low her hair hides her face. Her breathing is shallow and uneven, like each inhale is a gamble she might lose.
"Ardere?" My voice comes out hoarse.
She stirs, barely. The movement looks wrong—too slow, too heavy, like every joint is rusted. Her hand lifts, trembles in the air, then drops again.
I'm already halfway out of bed. My knee hits the floor hard, but I don't care. "Hey—hey, what the hell are you doing here?"
She tries to push herself up. I catch her before she topples sideways, and the heat under her skin makes my stomach clench. Not fever—burn. Bruises map her neck and jaw, shadows in the moonlight, and there's a thin trail of dried blood at the corner of her mouth.
She looks up at me, and the moment our eyes lock, I see it: the fight it took just to get here. The fight it's still taking to stay awake.
"Ard—stop moving. You're gonna—"
Her fingers twitch against my arm, dragging my gaze down. She's trying to mouth something, but her lips keep faltering, like the muscles won't obey. The shapes are half-formed, stuttered. I only catch fragments: you, safe?, please.
My throat tightens. "I'm fine. You're the one—"
Her head shakes sharply. Her mouth opens, but no sound comes out—just a rough gasp that makes her whole body flinch. She mouths something again, slower this time, willing me to read her lips.
Two words. I think.
Not safe.
I freeze. "What do you mean not safe? Who—?"
Her eyes close briefly, her brow knotting in frustration. When she forces them open again, there's nothing steady in her focus; it flickers, like she's fighting to stay anchored. She tries to push away from me, motioning weakly toward the door.
"No. No, you're not walking anywhere. You nearly collapsed getting here." I grip her shoulders, trying to keep my touch gentle, but my pulse is pounding so loud it's a miracle she can't hear it. "If you've got something to tell me, you can damn well do it without killing yourself in the process."
Her mouth pulls into something halfway between a grimace and a plea. She makes another sign—messy, jagged. Lysander.
And suddenly I'm wide awake in a way the nightmare never managed.
I've done stupid things before.
I've been caught with stolen weapons, smuggled a priest out of a siege, even lied to Lysander's face. But trying to drag Ardere back to bed before he sees her like this? This… might be my suicide note.
She's cold—bones and shivers under my hands—but she's fighting me. Not with strength. With intent.
She plants her heels into the floor, fingers gripping my sleeve like she's holding on for dear life. Her mouth keeps moving. No sound. Just shapes. Her throat is too raw for speech, but she's relentless.
"Ardere—stop." My voice is low, sharp. If Lysander hears us, I'm dead before she is.
Her lips move again. I catch the rhythm—three syllables, maybe four. My brain tries to guess, to fill in the blanks: What are you? Don't leave me? Go to hell? Honestly, all three fit.
I try to haul her closer to the bed, but she twists, catching my sleeve again. It's not just stubbornness now—her eyes are locked on mine, hard and bright even in the dim light. It's not a plea. It's a demand.
"What?" I hiss, leaning in, because if she's going to get me gutted, I at least want to know what for.
She shapes the words slower this time. You have powers.
My stomach drops like I've stepped off a cliff.
Her stare doesn't waver. She knows.
"Ardere—" My voice comes out harsher than I mean it to, so I try again, quieter. "You don't want to have this conversation. Not now. Not here."
She shakes her head. Keeps mouthing the same thing. You have powers.
The air feels heavier now, like the walls are leaning in to listen. My grip tightens on her arm, because I swear if she keeps this up, she's going to pull the whole truth out of me before Lysander has the chance to rip it from my corpse.
"You don't know what you're talking about."
Her lips: Show me.
For a heartbeat, I forget about the knife hanging over my head. She's asking the one thing no one's ever asked me like it was a choice—like it wasn't something to be feared. My gut twists with the urge to give her something, some tiny proof, but that's the kind of reckless that ends in blood on the walls.
I try to guide her toward the bed again, this time softer, less force and more coaxing. "Ardere, you need to sit down before—"
The creak of a door down the hall freezes me mid-sentence. Lysander's voice, faint but moving closer.
I don't think. I scoop her up—she's too light, it's like carrying smoke—and dump her back onto the mattress, tugging the blanket over her before she can protest.
Her hand shoots out, catches my wrist. Her grip is weak but her eyes… her eyes could cut me open. She mouths it one more time. Show me.
I barely made it. One second more and I'd have been standing in plain sight, with Lysander deciding which organ to carve out first. Instead, I'm wedged behind the armoire, shoulder cramping, breathing through my teeth like a hunted animal.
Ardere doesn't move. She's good—eyes shut, chest rising steady. If I didn't know her, I'd think she was actually asleep.
The door opens. I can hear the measured footsteps before I see his shadow stretch across the floor. Lysander. The air changes when he's here—thick, sharp, like a knife's edge pressing into your throat.
He checks her vitals. His fingers linger on her wrist longer than necessary, like he's memorizing the beat of her heart. I don't breathe. My lungs burn, but the alternative is worse.
Then, finally, he leaves. The door clicks shut, and the sound takes the weight off my chest. I wait three more heartbeats before peeling myself out of my hiding spot. Every joint protests. My left leg's asleep, my back's screaming, and my shoulder's going to be locked for the next week.
Ardere's eyes open before I can say anything. She mouths something at me, brows pulling together.
"Don't," I whisper, because if she asks right now, I'm not sure I'll give her the answer she wants.
She tries again. Persistent. Stubborn. Always.
I sink onto the edge of her bed, rubbing the cramp out of my leg. "All I know," I start, slow, because I hate saying this out loud, "is that it's tied to… me. To my emotions." My eyes flick up to hers. "Especially when it comes to you."
Her brows lift. She's not expecting that part.
"When I'm scared… angry… afraid—" I pause, realizing I just listed fear twice. "Things break."
She mouths another question, but I shake my head. "That's it. No secret instruction manual. No magic words. Just me losing my grip and something around me snapping before I do."
For a second, it's quiet enough I can hear both of our heartbeats. Hers is steadier than mine. Figures.
She looks at me, and I can tell before she even opens her mouth.
It's in the way her eyes dip, the way her shoulders slope like she's trying to fold herself into nothing. A silent apology.
I hate it.
I hate that she thinks she owes me that. I hate that she's standing here with half her ribs bruised and god-knows-what else wrong inside her and still—still—her first instinct is to make me feel better.
She doesn't know what it does to me.
She doesn't know that the second I catch that look, all I can think about is how I left her. How I fought with her that night until the words stuck between us like broken glass. How I went so far as to have Riven plant something in her head—a crush—just so she'd feel something for me when I didn't deserve it. How I'm the reason she's even in this mess in the first place.
And now she's the one apologizing?
No.
No, she's the last person who should.
The guilt burns through my chest before I can stop it, curling hot and alive under my skin. My powers react before my brain can catch up—like they know exactly where to go, exactly how to show me what I've done. I feel the air shift, static rising in a slow crawl over my arms. The floor hums beneath my boots. Somewhere behind me, the shadows lean closer, tasting the change in me.
Her hand presses to my chest, small but firm, and for a moment it's the only thing keeping me from shattering the whole damn room.
The air's still trembling, glass still humming in its frames, but my head clears just enough to breathe when I see her.
And then—
That look.
The flicker of pain in her eyes cuts straight through me.
I follow it down.
Dark red blooms against her side, soaking through the fabric, spreading faster than my mind can process. My pulse stutters.
"Shit."
My hands hover before I touch her—afraid to hurt her more, afraid to see how bad it really is. "You tore them, didn't you?" My voice comes out low, hoarse, almost swallowed by the sound of my own heartbeat.
Her silence isn't surprise—it's deliberate. She's holding herself together, for me, when I'm the one who should be holding her.
I ease her hand off my chest, but it leaves a heat there that lingers. "Sit down. Please." My plea sounds pathetic, even to me. "Just… let me see."
I press my palm against the bleeding, trying to slow it, but every second feels like I'm pushing time backward with my bare hands.
The guilt's heavier than the air, heavier than the quake I just stopped. I did this—shook her apart without even touching her.
And somewhere beyond the walls, the threat of Lysander finding us tightens my chest, but I can't care.
Right now, all I see is the blood. All I feel is the silence.
The floorboards creak under my boots as I carry her down the narrow hall, every sound making me grit my teeth in case Lysander hears. My head's already working through the next ten steps—get her stitched up again, get the bleeding under control, find her something to eat.
I'm not going to lie—half the reason I'm trying to fix Ardere's stitches is because I'm worried about infection. The other half is because I'm trying to stall. If I keep busy, maybe I won't have to deal with the fact that Lysander is going to kick my ass into next week when he sees the state she's in.
Problem is… I have no idea what the hell I'm doing.
I've got her sitting in the chair in front of me, her shirt pulled just enough to expose the angry red wound on her side. The stitches are loose, one already broken, and the skin around it looks like it's been through a war—which, technically, it has. My hands hover uselessly over the mess, holding a needle I found in the first aid kit like it's some kind of alien technology.
I've stitched up my own gear before. Leather, canvas, the occasional ripped sleeve. Not flesh. Not her.
"You could help me out a little, you know," I mutter, but she just stares straight ahead, silent. Her breathing is shallow, careful—probably because she knows moving will make this worse.
I try to remember anything I've seen Lysander do. The problem is, whenever Lysander's patching someone up, I'm usually either too concussed to pay attention or too busy running my mouth to avoid looking at the gore. So I'm left here, hands sweating, threading the needle like some medieval torture apprentice about to fail his first trial.
The wound twitches under my touch. She doesn't make a sound, but her shoulders tense. My jaw tightens.
"Yeah, I know. It sucks," I say, almost apologetically.
I make the first stitch. Or, at least, I think I do. It's lopsided. Uneven. Kind of pathetic-looking. I tug it a little tighter, and the thread snaps.
"Oh, for—" I bite back the curse and run a hand through my hair, resisting the urge to chuck the needle across the room. My stomach is starting to knot with a different kind of pain now—the kind that comes from the sinking realization that I'm in way over my head.
And that's when the bathroom door across the hall swings open.
Riven steps out, toweling his hair, shirtless, looking like he just walked out of some smug magazine ad. He freezes mid-step, his eyes landing on the scene in front of him. His gaze drifts from the half-open first aid kit on the floor, to my bloody fingers, to Ardere's side. His eyebrows lift slowly, like he's watching a crime unfold.
"I can explain," I blurt before he can say anything.
One corner of his mouth twitches. "Can you?"
"Yes. No. Shut up. Riven—please—" I'm on my feet before I even think about it, abandoning the chair to get in his way before he can walk off and summon my death sentence in the form of Lysander. "You have to fix it. And you can't—under any circumstances—tell him."
"'Him' being…"
"Don't play dumb. You know exactly who."
He leans against the wall, crossing his arms, watching me with way too much amusement for someone who's about to be roped into emergency field surgery. "You want me to clean up your mess, keep my mouth shut, and also take responsibility if this goes sideways?"
"Yes," I say without hesitation.
He stares at me for a moment, and I can see him weighing the pure entertainment value against the potential wrath of Lysander. Then he sighs, tosses the towel over his shoulder, and kneels by the chair.
"Move over, amateur," he says, flicking his fingers for me to get out of the way.
I don't even pretend to be insulted. I step back immediately, relief flooding through me as he pulls on gloves and starts prepping like he's done this a hundred times. Ardere still doesn't say a word, but I swear her posture eases—just barely—now that I'm not the one jabbing her with a needle.
I stand there, watching, feeling like I've just handed over a live grenade. If Riven decides to rat me out, I'm toast. But for now, I'm off the hook.
Riven squatted next to me, the smug little half-smile already tugging at his mouth. He opened the kit with a flick of his fingers like he'd been waiting his whole life for this moment.
"Let's see what we've got here…" He peeled the bloody gauze back from Ardere's side, his eyes scanning the ragged stitches I'd just massacred. He gave a low whistle. "Wow. Dorian, you didn't just do a bad job—you made art. Really abstract stuff."
I clenched my jaw. "Just fix it."
"Oh, I will. But this is a learning opportunity for you." He threaded a needle like he was tying a fishing lure, whispering just loud enough for me to hear. "First lesson: stop stabbing your patients with the wrong end of the needle."
I shot him a look, heat crawling up my neck. Ardere didn't so much as flinch—her eyes tracked Riven's hands, her face pale but unreadable. She hadn't made a sound this whole time.
Riven leaned closer to her side and started undoing the mangled stitches. "You know, if Lysander walks in and sees this—" He gestured to my handiwork without looking up, "—he's going to think you tried to embroider her."
I kept my voice low, glancing toward the hallway where Lysander could appear at any second. "Riven. I'm serious. Don't tell him."
"Oh, I won't." He smirked. "But that doesn't mean I won't keep it in my back pocket for… say… the next time you try to boss me around."
"You're blackmailing me?" I hissed.
"Not blackmail. Just… friendly leverage." He glanced up at me with a look that was way too pleased with itself. "Lesson two: always make sure your co-conspirator owes you something. Keeps life interesting."
I sat back, trying not to grind my teeth, watching him work. His stitches were quick, neat—so clean it made mine look like I'd been trying to sew with oven mitts on. Ardere's breathing steadied under his hands, her gaze flicking to me briefly. I wasn't sure if that was gratitude or just her way of silently judging me.
Riven tied off the last knot, snipped the thread, and sat back like he'd just completed a masterpiece. "There. Good as new. Try not to undo my work in the next twenty-four hours, yeah?"
I exhaled through my nose. "You're insufferable."
"True," he said, packing up the kit. "But at least I can sew."
****
I'm doing my best impression of "totally innocent house guest" this morning.
Which, given the past few days, is a complete joke.
I'm at the counter, hunched over a bowl of something vaguely resembling porridge, shoveling it in slow and casual, like eating is my only priority in life. Not plotting. Not scheming. Certainly not hoping to find a way out of here before Lysander decides today is a good day to rearrange my bones again.
Riven is in the corner like he always is—hands tucked in his sleeves, eyes half-lidded, sipping tea in a way that screams I know you're trying to look normal, and I'm taking notes on exactly how you're failing. If he's planning to rat me out, he's dragging it out for dramatic effect.
I'm halfway through my next spoonful when Lysander strides in from the back hall, no warning, no "good morning." Just that sharp, clipped energy he gets when something's on his mind. He drops a bundle of medical notes and vials onto the table so hard the spoon in my hand rattles against the bowl.
"I made a discovery this morning," he says, and his voice is the kind that makes my stomach tighten—calm on the surface, but with something taut underneath.
I keep my expression flat, like I'm not already imagining a dozen ways this could end with me bleeding. "...Congratulations?"
"Ardere's ICP is climbing."
"Her what now?"
Riven sighed, like it was exhausting to exist in the same airspace as my ignorance. "Intracranial pressure. It's… bad news, genius."
I felt my stomach drop. "Bad news like—"
"Bad news like if it keeps rising, the damage will become irreversible," Lysander cut in, his voice clinical but sharp enough to slice right through my attempt at denial. "We have hours, maybe a day, before the risk is permanent."
My toast suddenly felt like cardboard in my mouth. "So… what do we do?"
Lysander finally looked at me, eyes cold, calculating. "We get her mannitol."
"...That sounds like a shampoo."
"It's a diuretic," Riven said, still smirking. "Pulls fluid off the brain. Problem is, it's not exactly sitting on a pharmacy shelf waiting for us. Not here. Not in the dose she needs."
I blinked at them. "So, what—you're just going to waltz into a hospital and—"
"Not a hospital," Lysander said. "A market."
The way he said it made my skin crawl. "Define… market."
"The kind where you don't ask questions about where the goods came from," Riven said cheerfully. "The kind where if someone catches you asking the wrong questions, you don't leave. At least, not intact."
My jaw worked silently. "And… and Ardere…?"
"She comes with us," Lysander said flatly. "I need her under my observation. And in case you've forgotten, I don't trust you two alone together."
My brain short-circuited. "You're bringing her… into public?"
"Yes," Lysander said, already turning away like that was the end of it.
I couldn't help it—I laughed. It wasn't even a good laugh, just a shaky, borderline-hysterical sound. "She's gonna kill you."
Riven chuckled. "If she's got enough rage left to do it, it means the brain damage isn't as bad as we thought. Honestly, I'd call it a win."
I looked between them, my heart pounding. Ardere, with her injuries, her stitches, her raw, jagged fury, in the middle of some back-alley den of criminals. It was lunacy. It was suicide.
And worse, I knew exactly who she'd be looking for if she could still move her hands well enough to reach a weapon.
Me.